Pastry chef of year says pleasure comes first

By Olga NEDBAEVA

PARIS, Nov 13, 2023 (AFP) – Nina Metayer, the primary lady to win one of many world’s prime pastry chef awards, doesn’t consider in slicing again on the butter.

Metayer’s muffins have simply gained her the coveted “World Confectioner” award from the Worldwide Union of Bakers and Pastry Cooks.

That is the primary time the award has gone to a girl in its 92-year historical past.

However you gained’t discover the 35-year-old following any fashionable traits or low-fat choices.

“I like muffins with butter, gluten, eggs,” she advised AFP.

“I work from the precept that you just shouldn’t misinform individuals. Once we eat a cake, it’s for pleasure.”

And good high quality, tasty substances inevitably lower down on the quantity of sugar required, she added.

Different facets of Metayer’s success are much less conventional.

She has earned her new accolade with out being a part of a famend restaurant or perhaps a store.

As a substitute, Metayer runs a supply service out of an industrial house in a enterprise district simply outdoors Paris.

Busy making ready her new mango tart, she advised AFP that the important thing lay in precision and little twists, not wild originality.

“I’m not considering up unbelievable recipes that nobody has achieved earlier than,” she mentioned.

“It’s about having an intuition but in addition being exact all the way down to the millimetre — every thing is weighed, calculated… we’ve got micro-scales in order that we are able to reproduce them all the way down to the final piece of zest.”

– ‘No glass ceiling’ –
Educated as a baker, Metayer discovered it robust to interrupt into the male-dominated world of French boulangeries when she began out 15 years in the past.

Switching to muffins “was not a lot simpler,” she mentioned, however with perseverance Metayer landed gigs within the Michelin-starred kitchens of prime cooks like Yannick Alleno and Amandine Chaignot, finally incomes her prime awards from French guides.

“Nina represents all that’s finest in fashionable confectionary. She is absolutely transferring the occupation ahead,” mentioned Marc Esquerre of the Gault et Millau meals information.

Metayer moved into the big industrial house three years in the past to construct her personal enterprise.

It’s a system that enables her to keep away from waste and cater on to prospects’ needs, she says.

Typically posting movies on-line of her making muffins together with her two younger daughters, Metayer says she desires to point out it’s attainable to be “a feminine chef, entrepreneur, and have a contented household”.

Round her, the sous-chefs are including touches to mango and keenness fruit pavlovas and tarte tatins.

“This ambiance, with a detailed staff below a feminine chef, is reassuring for younger girls beginning in pastry work, as a result of it’s not like this in all places,” mentioned 30-year-old Lucie Martin-Pierrat.

“It’s inspiring. We see there isn’t any glass ceiling.” added her colleague, 27-year-old Mathilde Jeannes.

The staff has grown quickly from three to 30. However whereas orders are pouring in after final month’s award, Metayer’s husband, Mathieu Salome, who helps run the enterprise, mentioned they don’t need to flip right into a manufacturing line.

“We’re artisans, not manufacturing facility employees,” he mentioned.